The most effective way to defend Israel
against Obama is to boldly assert, defend and implement a unilateral Israeli
plan.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is stuck between a
diplomatic rock and a political hard place. And his chosen means of extricating
himself from the double bind is only making things worse for him and for Israel.

Diplomatically, Netanyahu is beset by the Palestinian
political war to delegitimize Israel and the Obama administration�s escalating
hostility. That hostility was most recently expressed during President Barack
Obama�s meeting with American Jewish leaders on March 1. Insinuating that Israel
is to blame for the absence of peace in the Middle East, Obama scolded Jewish
leaders, telling them to �search your souls� over Israel�s seriousness about
making peace.

Obama�s newest threat is that through the so called Middle
East Quartet, (Russia, the UN, the EU and the US), the administration will move
towards supporting the Palestinian plan to declare statehood. That state would
include all of Judea and Samaria, Gaza and eastern, southern and northern
Jerusalem. Since it would not be established in the framework of a peace treaty
with Israel, and since its leaders reject Israel�s right to exist, �Palestine�
would be born in a de facto state of war with Israel.

To credit this threat, Obama has empowered the Quartet to
supplant the US as the mediator between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Buoyed by Obama, Quartet representatives and American and
European officials have beaten a steady path to Netanyahu�s door over the past
several weeks. Their message is always the same: If Israel does not prove that
it is serious about peace by giving massive, unreciprocated concessions to the
Palestinians, then they will abandon all remaining pretense of support for
Israel and throw their lot in completely with the Palestinians.

For the past year and a half Netanyahu�s policy for dealing
with Obama�s animosity has been to try to appease him by making incremental
concessions.

Netanyahu�s rationale for acting in this manner is twofold.
First, he has tried to convince Obama that he really does want peace with the
Palestinians. Second, when each of his concessions is met with further
Palestinian intransigence, Netanyahu has argued that the disparity between
Israeli concessions and Palestinian rejectionism and extremism demonstrates that
it is Israel, not the Palestinians, that should be supported by the West.

To date Netanyahu�s concessions have included his acceptance
of Palestinian statehood and the two-state paradigm for peace; his temporary
prohibition on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria; his undeclared
prohibition on Jewish building in Jerusalem; his undeclared, open-ended
prohibition of Jewish building in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem after his
temporary building ban expired; his agreement to drastically curtail IDF
counterterror operations in Judea and Samaria; his move to enact an undeclared
abatement of law enforcement against illegal Arab construction in Jerusalem; and
his decision to enable the deployment of the US-trained Palestinian army in
Judea and Samaria.

Netanyahu�s declaration of support for Palestinian statehood
required his acceptance of the Palestinian narrative. That narrative blames the
absence of peace on Israel�s refusal to surrender all of Judea, Samaria and
Jerusalem. Having effectively accepted the blame for the absence of peace,
Netanyahu has been unable to wage a coherent political counteroffensive against
the Palestinian political war.

Now, in a bid to head off Obama�s newest threat to use the
Quartet to back the Palestinians� political war against Israel, Netanyahu is
considering yet another set of unreciprocated concessions to the Palestinians.

For the past week and a half, Netanyahu has been considering
a new �diplomatic initiative.�

According to media reports, he is weighing two options.
First, he may end IDF counterterror operations in Palestinian cities in Judea
and Samaria.

Such a move would involve compromising all of the IDF�s
military achievements in the areas since 2002, when it first targeted the
Palestinian terror factories from Hebron to Jenin during Operation Defensive
Shield.

The second option he is reportedly considering involves
announcing his acceptance of a Palestinian state with non-final borders. Such a
move would render it difficult if not impossible for Israel to conduct
counterterror operations within those temporary borders. It would also make it
all but impossible for Israel to assert its sovereign rights over the areas.

Supporters of this initiative argue that not only will it
stave off US pressure; it will strengthen Netanyahu�s political position at
home. Recent polls show that Netanyahu�s approval numbers are falling while
those of his two main rivals � opposition leader Tzipi Livni and Foreign
Minister and Israel Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman are rising.

Netanyahu reportedly believes that by moving to the Left, he
will be able to take support away from Livni and so regain his position as the
most popular leader in the country. Given this assessment, Netanyahu�s
supporters argue that making further concessions to the Palestinians is a winwin
prospect. It will strengthen Israel diplomatically and it will strengthen him
politically.

Sadly for both Israel and Netanyahu, this analysis is
completely wrong.

Since Obama came into office, he has consistently
demonstrated that no Israeli concession will convince him to support Israel
against the Palestinians.

So, too, the fact that every Israeli concession has been met
by Palestinian intransigence has had no impact on either Obama or his European
counterparts. Netanyahu correctly claims that the Palestinians� intransigence
shows they are not interested in peace is of interest to no one.

And it is this lack of interest in Palestinian intransigence
rather than Palestinian intransigence itself that is remarkable. What it shows
is that Obama and his European counterparts don�t care about achieving peace.
Like the Palestinians, all they want is more Israeli concessions.

Since taking office, Obama has only supported Israel against
the Palestinians twice. The first time was last December. After months of
deliberate ambiguity, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the
administration opposes the Palestinian plan to unilaterally declare
independence.

Then last month the administration grudgingly vetoed the
Palestinian-Lebanese draft Security Council resolution condemning Israeli
construction in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

In both cases, the administration�s actions were not the
result of Israeli appeasement, but of massive congressional pressure. Congress
issued bipartisan calls demanding that the administration torpedo both of these
anti-Israel initiatives.

What this this shows is that Netanyahu�s strategy for
contending with Obama is fundamentally misconstrued and misdirected. Obama will
not be moved by Israeli concessions. The only way to stop Obama from moving
forward on his anti- Israel policy course is to work through Congress.

And the most effective way to work through Congress is for
Netanyahu to abandon his current course and tell the truth about the nature of
the Palestinians, their rejection of Israel, their anti- Americanism and their
support for jihadist terror.

At the same time, Netanyahu must speak unambiguously about
Israel�s national rights to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, our required security
borders, and about why US national security requires a strong Israel.

The stronger the case Netanyahu makes for Israel, the more
support Israel will receive from the Congress. And the more support Israel
receives from the Congress, the more Obama will be compelled to temper his
anti-Israel agenda.

As for domestic politics, Netanyahu�s attempt to appease
Obama is a major cause of his falling approval numbers among voters. Likud
voters do not expect him to outflank Livni from the Left.

They voted for Likud and not Kadima because they recognized
that Kadima�s leftist policies are dangerous and doomed to failure.

Kadima�s recent increase in domestic support owes more to the
breakup of the Labor Party than to Netanyahu�s failure to carry out Kadima�s
policies of territorial surrender and diplomatic kowtowing to the UN, EU and
Obama. The main beneficiary of Likud�s eroding support has been Leiberman.

While Netanyahu has maintained his allegiance to the false,
failed, unpopular-outside-of-the-media �peace with the Palestinians� paradigm in
the foolish hope of winning over Obama, Leiberman has seized control of the
Right�s political agenda. While Netanyahu accepts the legitimacy of the
Palestinian leadership that rejects Israel�s right to exist, Leiberman presents
himself as the leader of the majority of Israelis who oppose the Left�s agenda
of land for war.

Moreover, when Netanyahu shunts aside his own party�s most
popular politicians such as Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Ya�alon in favor
of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, he demoralizes his party faithful and his
voters.

And not only does Barak hurt Netanyahu with voters, this week
he took an ax to Israel�s most important diplomatic asset � congressional
support.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal on
Monday, Barak said that Israel may ask Congress to increase US military support
for Israel by $20 billion. Given the US�s economic woes, and Congress�s
commitment to massive budget cuts, at best Barak�s statement represented a
complete incomprehension about the basic facts of US domestic politics. At
worst, it was a supremely unfriendly act towards Israel�s friends in Congress
who are trying to maintain the current level of US military aid to Israel in the
face of a popular push to slash the foreign aid budget.

Beyond that, the plain fact is that Barak�s statement was
wrong. Israel�s steady economic growth and its recently discovered natural gas
fields should make it possible for Israel to decrease the military aid it
receives from the US. This is true even though the revolutions in Egypt and
throughout the Arab world will require Israel to massively increase its defense
budget.

If Netanyahu is serious about surmounting his diplomatic and
political challenges, his best bet is to abandon his present course altogether.
The most effective way to defend Israel against Obama is to boldly assert,
defend and implement a unilateral Israeli plan.

Netanyahu himself gave the broad outlines for such a plan
this week when he stated that to defend itself, Israel will need to maintain
perpetual control over the Jordan Valley. If Netanyahu were to announce a plan
to apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and the major blocs of Jewish
communities in Judea and Samaria, he would accomplish several things at once. He
would advance Israel�s national interests rather than the Palestinians�
interests against Israel. He would force the US and Europe to discuss issues
that are grounded in strategic rationality rather than leftist- Islamist
ideology. Finally, he would take back the leadership of his own political camp
from Leiberman and augment his political power domestically.

So, too, if Netanyahu fired Barak and replaced him with
Ya�alon, he would energize his political supporters in a way he has failed to do
since taking office.

Netanyahu is reportedly considering unveiling his new
diplomatic initiative in a speech before Congress in May. If he were to use that
venue to unveil this plan and also announce a plan to wean Israel off US
military aid within three years, not only would he blunt Obama�s power to
threaten Israel. He would secure popular US support for Israel for years to
come.

And if he did that, he would restore the Israeli voters�
support for his leadership and stabilize his government through the next
elections. �